Martin Luther King

President Kennedy never foresaw that the chickens would come home to roost so soon…
— Malcolm X, December 1, 1963

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford | January 22, 2014

By Don DeBar | Black Agenda Report | January 17, 2012

“The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own Government… I cannot be silent.” – Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.
— Martin Luther King, in his famous speech at the Riverside Church in New York City on April 4, 1967

I was in federal court here Friday for the sentencing of Jeremy Hammond to 10 years in prison for hacking into the computers of a private security firm that works on behalf of the government, including the Department of Homeland Security, and corporations such as Dow Chemical. In 2011 Hammond, now 28, released to the website WikiLeaks and Rolling Stone and other publications some 3 million emails from the Texas-based company Strategic Forecasting Inc., or Stratfor.

As Obama and John Kerry prepare to bomb Syria, after months of supporting the sectarian insurgency in that country, we should remember the words of Martin Luther King. As this film makes clear, MLK was both a committed anti-war activist and an activist for racial justice.    Filed under: Barack Obama, Martin Luther King, Syria